Sunday, 23 June 2013

Opinion8: Songs about School

It’s easy to forget how vital, how exciting, how stirring
some of those old Hall and Oates songs were. This grabs you immediately, has a
great hook, a driving beat and interesting lyrics. Soul cum funk cum pop, just
a perfect song. And you know what a sucker I am for the syncopated handclap.

It’s afternoon in the home room and they're about to let you
go/And the lockers slam on the plan you had tonight/You’ve been messing around
with a boyfriend maybe better left alone/There's a wise guy that you know could
put you right/ … /And the long halls and the gray walls are gonna split apart/Believe
it or not there's life after high school.

You forget how dramatic the Rats could be (like the
brilliant Rat Trap) but this is a great reminder.

Bob Geldof wrote the song after reading a telex report on
the shooting spree of sixteen-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer at Grover Cleveland
Elementary School in San Diego on 29 January 1979. Spencer’s explanation for
her actions was "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day".Geldof:I was thinking about it on the way back to
the hotel and I just said 'Silicon chip inside her head had switched to
overload'. I wrote that down. And the journalist
interviewing her said, 'Tell me why?'

The silicon chip inside her head/Gets switched to
overload/And nobody’s gonna go to school today/She’s gonna make them stay at
home/And daddy doesn’t understand it/He always said she was good as gold/And he
can see no reasons/'Cos there are no reasons/What reason do you need to be
show-ow-ow-ow-own?

Joyful,
irresistible, effervescent pop. A British group that sound American,
Replacements-lite, ass not arse and so on. I forgot how much fun they were. So
much energy.Her voice is echoed in my mind/I count the days till she is
mine/Can’t tell my friends cos they will laugh/I love a member of the staff/I
fight my way to front of class/To get the best view of her ass/I drop a pencil
on the floor/She bends down and shows me more …/That’s what I go to school for ...

[The Kinks have to feature because of the concept album,
Schoolboys in Disgrace, which looks back at the Davies boys’ schooldays and
Dave’s misdemeanours. The front cover was illustrated by Mickey Finn of T. Rex,
later appearing on NME's list of the '50 worst covers of all time'. Ray Davies's take is
typically conflicted. He hated his schooldays but they were happy days. I don't
think Dave’s memory would be as rose-tinted.]

4 Headmaster – the Kinks

Gentle piano introduction accompanies Ray’s confessional
verse to the headmaster before the guitar breaks through as he becomes more
impassioned and somehow more distant-sounding in the chorus (as if he were
singing loudly but holding the mike away from him). Dave says ‘The chorus after
the guitar solo is pure magic’.

Of course, as mentioned in another blog, Ray’s usually
typecast as the evil headmaster.

Revenge of the nerds in a song. Catchy chorus, identifiable
characters, clever words and it tells a story even if it does have the
requisite happy ending of a romcom.

Her boyfriend's a dick/He brings a gun to school/He'd simply
kick my ass if he knew the truth/He lives on my block/And he drives an
I-ROC/But he doesn't know who I am/And he doesn't give a damn about me.

This is from some teen show, Fame LA, that I’d never heard
of. Only discovered it existed through my love of Christian Kane’s music. This
wasn’t written by him (as far as I know) but it makes no difference as even in 19whatever, he
sings it with total conviction. I just love the spirit with which he approaches
things – if he does anything, he gives it his all. I love his voice and it doesn’t hurt that he’s cute.
Great lyrics.

Well, the last one hurt like hell/Knocked the wind right out
of my sail/and I'll heal up someday/But it's gonna leave a beauty of a scar/ …
I'm tryin' to get myself an education/Cry one more tear towards
graduation/'Cause every Sunday punch I've thrown/Has come back around to clean
my clock/The bell is ringin' down at the school of hard knocks/They're gonna
inscribe my name/At the bridge-burnin' hall of fame/As a fool who never
learned/That there ain't no future in it …

Cooper was inspired to write the song when answering the
question, ‘What's the greatest three minutes of your life?’ His reply: ‘There's
two times during the year. One is Christmas morning, when you're just getting
ready to open the presents. … The next one is the last three minutes of the
last day of school when you're sitting there and it's like a slow fuse burning.
I said, “If we can catch that three minutes in a song, it's going to be so
big”.’ And he did and it was.

School's out for summer school's out forever school's been
blown to pieces/No more pencils no more books no more teacher's dirty looks
yeah/Well we got no class and we got no principals …

Love the ominous-sounding beginning. This won the Grammy
Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. In the UK, it was
the biggest selling single of the year. Rhyming cough with Nabokov is surely
worthy of Ray Davies himself.

Loose talk in the classroom/To hurt they try and try/Strong
words in the staffroom/The accusations fly/It's no use, he sees her/He starts
to shake and cough/Just like the old man in/That book by Nabokov ...